~ So many patterns, so much yarn, so little time: story of my hooky life.

Category Archives: Camping

The second to last day of our road trip was to Bewdley and CCCampers, the birthplace of iVan.

While Kristian did our 3000 mile check-up on the interior conversion, we took his car and explored Bewdley. It’s a lovely little town with a steam train station that looks like it is stuck in the 1940’s. Unfortunately we couldn’t take a ride on the steam train because of timing issues, but I would really like to go back and do the whole Severn Valley Railway journey from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth. We found time for fish and chips at the station cafe and ice cream along the river. Priorities, right?

Our camp site for the night was Hopley’s Family Camping which was a bit too “family” for us, but it was our last night and from there it was only a 2.5 hour journey home the next day so we stuck it out.

Now we’re home and it is good to be back. Our tiny home feels like a mansion compared to iVan. We loved our Scottish road trip and we consider ourselves blessed that we only had one bad experience, Midge Attack 2014. We drove through the most amazing scenery, appreciated the wide open spaces and all the colours of Mother Nature. I came back very inspired – inspired enough for at least three crochet blankets!

Today is John’s 40th birthday! After the pre-birthday celebrations in Edinburgh last night, we aimed straight for the Lake District and our campsite Coniston Coppice Park.

We didn’t stop along the route as we know we will be going back to the Lake District to explore it fully. We saw today’s trip as a taster of the week we are yet to spend in the Lake District – it’s a spectacular area. The only place we did stop was in Coniston itself to buy meat for the bbq. When in Cumbria, you have to buy Cumberland sausage, right? And where better than the local family butcher. Our little Outback Compact U gas portable bbq is so handy for a quick afternoon bbq! We bbq everything on it in a Teflon griddle pan that I got from Tesco for £7 (I even use it to toast bread on the gas hob in iVan). I just wash the pan when we’re done and John wipes down the Outback Compact U before putting it back in it’s case.

I can’t tell you how happy we were with the campsite and the whole area around Coniston. The campsite is big and the pitches set in the woods, yet within 10 minutes walk you are next to Coniston Lake and the National Trust farmland where you walk amongst the grazing sheep!

This was the perfect place to spend a 40th birthday. The birthday boy was a happy camper.

Coniston

The tame racing driver of Coniston

Coniston family butcher

Birthday lunch, camping style

Cumberland sausage and lamb & mint sausages

Cumberland sausage on the bbq

Coniston lake

Coniston lake

*If you want to see any of the photos full size, just click on it and use the arrows to navigate through the slideshow.

Day 3 of our road trip, covering Inverness to John O’Groats (the most northerly point of the United Kingdom) was one of the most scenic.

Along the way we stopped at Golspie and walked up to the Berriedale graveyard, but one of our best finds was taking a small turn off from the A9 to Latheronwheel. It’s a tiny village with secluded little harbour. We spent a hour here, just taking photos and enjoying the quiet. John even jumped over the little river to explore the abandoned house.

We didn’t book a camp site in advance for today. We reckoned there would be plenty around John O’Groats or we could just sleep at the side of the road. Imagine our delight when we reached John O’Groats to find the John O’Groats Camping and Caravan Site! It a fantastic campsite set on the edge of the water, surrounded by farmland and has great facilities. After choosing our pitch we went for a scrummy Cream Tea For Two at the Knitwear Cafe and a wander on the beach.

Oh, and I finished John’s scarf just after Berriedale.

Berriedale graveyard

Berriedale graveyard

Berriedale graveyard

Tweed crochet scarf

Tweed crochet scarf

En route

Latheronwheel

Rock plants

Latheronwheel

Abandoned house at Latheronwheel

Bridge

Look! We bought a house in Scotland!

John O’Groats

John O’Groats Caravan Site

John O’Groats

Tea For Two at Puffin Cafe

Playfull on John O’Groats beach

John O’Groats beautiful pebbles

Farmland at John O’Groats

*If you want to see any of the photos full size, just click on it and use the arrows to navigate through the slideshow.

We’re back from our first more-than-a-longweekend trip with Ivan. We went all the way from Surrey to John O’Groats and back again in a week. We saw the most beautiful places on our way to Scotland, and in the Highlands the scenery took our breath away. I will be sharing our road trip with you in seven posts. Expect a lot of photos!

This was the route for day 1: Thames Ditton to St. Mary’s Loch in the Scottish Borders.

On our way to the Tibbie Shields Inn Campsite, we stopped at Harrogate for tea & fat rascals at Betty’s Tea Room and at Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North. John and I couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful Yorkshire is – this is definitely on our to do list for Spring, and not just for a weekend. We want to go back to Yorkshire for at least a week (and I want to eat Fat Rascals for breakfast every day).

The Tibbie Shields Inn campsite is right on the banks of St. Mary’s Loch, and I mean ON the bank. The shower and toilet facilities are not great, but what it lacks in facilities it more than makes up for in location.

Betty’s Tea Room Harrogate

Tea at Betty’s

Fat Rascal and Betty’s House Blend tea

Angel of the North

Scottish border

St. Mary’s Loch

St. Mary’s Loch

*If you want to see any of the photos full size, just click on it and use the arrows to navigate through the slideshow.

We’ve now been camping for a month and as you can probably tell from my post-weekend blog posts, we love it! Since I love crochet too, it would only follow that I will crochet camping / campervan / caravan goodies and here is the first one: a caravan keychain.

You can whip this caravan keychain up with scraps of yarn in less than a hour.

You will need double knit or light worsted cotton yarn in two shades and a 4 mm crochet hook. Also light grey yarn for embroidery and two small black buttons.

Window and doors:Use light grey yarn and backstitches to embroider the door onto one of the caravan panels. Use french knot for door handle. Use back stitch to embroider the window. The bottom line of the window should be worked over 4 SC. Work one side diagonally across two rows. The top upper line of the window will then be worked over 3 SC. Space the window and the door one SC apart.

Repeat the window design on the the second caravan panel, replacing the door with a second window.

Chain:With colour B chain 22 and fasten off. Use the tail end to sew the chain onto the wrong side of one of the caravan panels, positioning it at the top left corner. Make sure not to stich through to the right side when sewing on the chain.

Finishing: Sew on a small black button on each caravan panel, positioning the buttonholes in line with the bottom of caravan. Using neat overhand stitches, sew the two sides together with matching yarn.

I hope you enjoy making the cute caravan keychain. Please link your keychains to the pattern on Ravelry so that I can see all the happy hooky caravans!

On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.

What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!

From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.

xxxxxx

Devil’s Punchbowl

Devil’s Punchbowl

Devil’s Punchbowl

Bright orange insect eggs on a bench

Devil’s Punchbowl

John and I at Devil’s Punchbowl

Devil’s Punchbowl

Devil’s Punchbowl

Devil’s Punchbowl

Oh how we love exploring with Ivan The Campervan! Saturday we drove out to Hindhead Common and Devil’s Punchbowl. It’s a strange name for a beautiful area of Surrey. According to one legend the Devil became so irritated by all the churches being built in Sussex that he decided to dig a channel from the English Channel, through the South Downs, and flood the area. As he began digging, he threw up huge lumps of earth, each of which became a local landmark. He got as far as the village of Poynings (an area known as the Devil’s Dyke) when he was disturbed by a cock crowing. Assuming that dawn was about to break, he leapt into Surrey, creating the Devil’s Punchbowl where he landed. Interesting…

After parking Ivan at the National Trust site, John and I went for a leisurely wander of about 30 minutes. It was only 30 minutes because coffee and carrot cake were calling our name. John bought the carrot cake at the National Trust Cafe so that he could make change for the parking meter. What can you do? You’ve got to pay the parking meter, right? Might as well get something out of it. And if you have cake, you need coffee and well, we just needed to fill up our collapsible kettle. It’s a no-brainer.

We sat there for about an hour, me crocheting and John reading (walking for 30, sitting for an hour – you get the gist of our priorities and level of weekend activity…). By this time it was lunch time so we drove on, looking for a quiet spot to make lunch. This turned out to be a secluded viewpoint just before you reach Rake, right next to farmland, hidden behind huge trees.

Roadside viewpoint near Rake

It was absolutely fantastic. So fantastic, that after I made a quick lunch of fajitas (Tesco frozen fajita mix and Old El Paso Corn Wraps are fantastic for a camping lunch), we popped Ivan’s roof and had an afternoon nap on the top bunk! Our very first time sleeping in the pop top roof, and an afternoon nap at that! Man, it was good!

On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.

What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!

From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.

xxxxxx

Ivan The Campervan wanted to hit the road again, so we drove down him down to Hastings on Saturday to spend the day parked on Galley Hill and stayed the night at the Battle Normanhust Court camp site. We are really getting into the swing of Camping Things. Our second weekend away with Ivan was easier and even more enjoyable than the first.

These are images from our perfect morning walk on Sunday along the camp site’s “dog walk” route. That morning walk was the highlight of our weekend. At one point John and I just stood still and looked out at the farmland, appreciating the calm, the blue skies and the green fields. Though there weren’t any traffic noise or people, it wasn’t actually quiet. We heard a constant buzz of bees, the crunch of our feet on the dry earth, rustle of the wind in the trees and the grasses – two completely different sounds – and bellow of the cows: soothing sounds, not noise. We stopped to appreciate the wild flowers and John rescued a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. Appreciating nature and being part of it, is why we started camping. We even made a farmyard friend along the way. John fed our new cow friend, which we named Steak, elderflowers. Friends for life I tell you.

I have been waiting more than six months to write this blog post so you can imagine how excited and happy I am to be able to finally share with you my great news: John and I are the proud owners of a fully kitted out custom-built brand new campervan!!!! We call him Ivan. It’s actually iVan because the owner of company who did the retrofit, said the inside of the van looks like an iPod because of all the white, hence iVan which became Ivan.

Do you want to know a bit more about Ivan? I thought you would, so my list making, bullet point loving, timeline thinking kind of brain is going to set out the sequence of events like I do the nitty gritty of my crochet projects:

25 July 2014 – Made the 4 hour train journey to Kidderminster to collect our Van with a huge suitcase filled with kitchen basics, clothes and a vacuum pack bag of bedding: four cushions, the quilt my mom gave us for our wedding, a picnic blanket and towels all fitted into our suitcase (vacuum pack bags are so handy!).

As you can see this van has been a very long time coming, so we were super happy to finally see it. The Vauxhall factory delivered it straight to the CC Campers so even though we bought it in January, we only received the keys to our van in July. It was a great moment and the start of great things for the Kings.

It was totally worth the wait, and putting our trust in CC Campers was justified. We love every thing about our van. Christian did the most amazing job delivering a campervan with great attention to detail, high quality finishing and very practical.

We’ve only slept in our van for twice, but it was goooood. The layout really works for us. John can stay in bed while I scoot on over to the kitchen to make tea in the kitchen which wouldn’t be possible with the traditional campervan layout with “rock ‘n roll bed“. Our first night was a bit awkward because we left the pop top roof open which made it very cold inside. Saturday night was much better and more comfortable because we closed the pop top roof and took down the foam mattress to put on top of our seat-bed. Much better indeed.

I just adore our lime green Outwell collapsible kettle. The green section is silicone which just folds in on itself when you are ready to hit the road. It takes up no space at all. I’m also going to buy the collapsable mixing bowl. Green of course. The colour scheme for Ivan is grey and lime green. (We might be camping, but we can do it according to a colour palette).

This is Ivan parked on his pitch at Malvern Hills Camp Site.

Having never once in our lives camped, not even as day visitors, seeing the well organised and well equipped site office was a real treat for us. For regular campers this may be nothing special, but for is it was nice to know that we can pop on over to buy a bread and eggs, and borrow a rubber hammer (which we did).

Here’s John demonstrating how we cook in the campervan. We had to park our van with the back facing the road so that we could reach the electric point. Under normal circumstances we would not want to be on show like this. Not that fellow campers made a big thing of being able to see into our van. Camping Folk are really very private and everyone feels like we do: we will acknowledge a neighbour or passer-by, but want to be left alone for the most part.

The view from our campervan overlooking the Malvern Hills Camp Site. It may seem that there are a lot of caravans, but somehow it didn’t feel busy. For us as newbies when we drove in and saw all of these we thought “Oh man. This is going to be noisy and cramped!” but it wasn’t. The kids on site was very well-behaved, the dogs well-behaved, the adults quiet and curtious. The site as a whole is extremely well maintained and the toilet blocks very clean. Malven Hills Camp Site was a great choice for our very first campsite experience.

Gammon and egg on our first morning. Served on crocheted placemats of course. We’re eating out of disposable plastic plates with plastic knives and forks, but we’re not animals!

Speaking of crochet. I didn’t do any! I kid you not. I had three crochet projects with me thinking I may run out of projects because of all the time I’ll have to crochet, but all I did all weekend was read and enjoy nature, which included a 1.5 mile walk to Hanley Swan.

Reading in nature

Henley Swan

Henley Swan pond

Henley Swan pond

Henley Swan

The one thing that stands out for me from this weekend, apart of course the fact that I am super happy with our campervan and know we will be spending a LOT of time camping, is that camping is so utterly relaxing. John said I was a different person at the camp site. I know why. It’s because I can’t rush anything. It’s impossible to do anything quickly when the biggest gas burner is the size of the smallest one in your home kitchen, when you can’t wash the dishes while something is cooking because you may burn yourself, you can’t wipe the counter top while something is cooking because you may burn yourself, you have to bend down awkwardly to get the plates under the cooker and be careful when you get up to not switch on the microwave with your bum. Living in a small space forces you to s l o w down and just take it easy. Once you embrace it and learn to chill out, the days feel like weeks, time stands still and you learn to live in, and enjoy, the moment.

Brace yourself readers, you will be seeing a lot more than just crochet on this blog from now on. I may not have done any crochet on our first camping weekend, but my head is full of ideas for crochet things to improve camp life and storage in the campervan. Patterns and projects will follow very soon.

If any of my readers are Camping Folk, I’d love to hear from you with suggestions of good sites, tips, etc.

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